Robotic Shimon is Ready to Jam

Man, the gig is tonight and you’ve got no cool cats around to play mallets! Maybe it’s time to give Shimon a call. The robotic Marimba player isn’t your average automatic musician. This one is built for improv, listening to piano accompaniment and spitting back counterpoint. The feature list sounds like fun: live synchronization, anticipation and beat tracking, dynamic rhythmic gestures, chord classification and some improvisation of its own. Check out the video to see a jam in action. Unfortunately, Shimon doesn’t look wistfully back at the pianist when they’re totally locked in. I’ve also heard that he only pays after the show. Tsk-tsk. [via Engadget]